Is Mr. Money Mustache Ruining Your Marriage? (Part 2)

In our last episode, we reviewed a particularly spirited example of the classic battle over frugality, cheapness, and the freedom to spend one’s own money the way one sees fit. Some version of this same clash is surely occuring a thousand times over in every city of the world on a continual basis, for it lies at the root at human nature itself. This is why I find it so interesting.

For example, while some couples end up at war and never get anywhere, others find that frugality brings peace. Check out this quote from an email someone sent me the very next day in response to that last article:

“My wife absolutely loves Mustachianism too, even though she has never read your stories or visited your website. She just loves the man I’ve begun to transform into (biking to work, fixing things in the house, carpentry, no more TV, long walks, etc.)”

Another woman shared her story of sudden Mustachianism-induced change the same day:

“Since then, we have sold the SUV and bought a used compact car, paid off all of our debts, sold the house and gotten another (1000 sq ft total!) in the city, close to transit and work, and live on 30% of what we used to. I have lost 30 lbs in the process, hubby lost 40 lbs, happier and feeling so much more accomplished. (…) I’m not planning on retiring soon as I’ve made my priority working one day per week for now until my daughter gets into school, but with the changes I will have my home paid for in 5 years and will be retirement ready by 48. This is truly a 180 degree change from before.”

We could write a whole encyclopedia about personality types, feelings, and relationship dynamics before we even got to the start of what is going on here, then move on to take an expensive series of counseling sessions. But to take a massive shortcut and just go right to the answer, I believe that the biggest cause of fights like this is in our different responses to authority.

Through a combination of genetically-inherited temperament and socially programmed character, we all end up at different places on the obedience scale. Some kids actually listen to their parents and do things like eating whatever is put in front of them at dinnertime, whereas my own son will gladly enter a battle to the death before accepting verbal commands to do something he feels is irrational or unfair.

I could write this off as childish, but unfortunately I am the same way*. If a person or society imposes a rule on me, it had better have some identifiable logical reason behind it. Otherwise, I find myself digging in and willing to fight against it – quite enthusiastically to the death if required. Watching the response of Gimli (that Invincible Dwarf with the Giant Beard in Lord of the Rings) when the prospect of battle comes up, I feel an eerie kinship with the diminutive badass.

So let’s suppose you are the frugal one in your relationship, and your spouse is prone to wasteful spending. Hey, I’m on your side too – most of the shit we spend our money on is rubbish and you end up richer and much happier if you just simply stop buying it. But how do you spread this obvious logic to your spouse?

Well, for starters, you don’t do it by watching over his or her spending and then nagging every time you see something you don’t like. While this is your natural temptation, and it does work for those who happen to have obedient spouses, it will backfire miserably for the other 75% of us. This is because you are trying to impose authority on someone who does not like to be bossed around. Note that in the success stories above, each side was fueled by the positive results of frugality rather than just obediently following the instructions of a spouse.

So instead of nitpicking the symptoms (individual spending decisions), you need to address the root cause: Your Goals in Life.

Your first task is making sure you both are working towards the same common “Why?”

This step may take minutes, or it may take years.

There are plenty of good Whys out there, but they can be elusive at first. My own Why is simply “to live the best life possible”, from which stems a desire for health, personal growth, free time to explore my interests and even more free time to raise my son. I found that none of these could be optimized with a full-time job getting in the way, so my very first task was eliminating dependence on that job.

When you add in the environmental side of things and the fact that to waste natural resources is quite simply to be an asshole to all other humans and other living beings on the planet, the choice for me became even clearer.

Some people might get stuck with irreconcilable differences at that very first step. A vegan might find it unacceptable for moral reasons to live with an omnivore like myself, for example. And I’m personally stubborn enough that I couldn’t live with someone who insisted on a full-sized SUV for personal transport. Better to just sidestep such lifelong conflicts instead of spending a lifetime fighting them. But if you’re already locked in with a wife and kids, it is time to be more patient and creative because honoring your responsibilities comes above serving your own personal ideology**.

Once you can agree on your definition of The Best Life Possible, it often helps to start by Painting the 10-Year Picture.

For example, one brilliant reader named Andy wrote in and shared a story of his own success at flipping the frugality switch. His approach in a nutshell was, “If we keep doing what we are doing now, here’s where we will be in 10 years. But if we do it this other way (sell the expensive car, pay off our debts, live a different way), we will be over $200,000 further ahead, which will make our lives much better.”

He conveyed this message by giving a slightly silly Powerpoint presentation to his own wife. And the results were so good, he sent in the slides to share with you:

Make Our Money Sing: A Money Mustachian Adventure

Most people cannot see the connection between lattes, sandals, V-8 engines, and a million dollars. But it’s really there – changing relatively simple spending habits will indeed make the difference between Broke and Millionaire over a reasonably short time period. A slideshow like that one makes the math clear.

Other people might be more impressed by emotional appeals rather than monetary ones. The fact that you start living more happily immediately when you spend more time outdoors, for example. The relationship between debt, stress, and death. The idea of retiring in your 30s or 40s instead of after you get your discounted senior citizen bus pass. Or the incredible benefit of not having to worry much about money and careers when you’re busy with the bigger job of raising your kids.

All of these things are the direct result of living a frugal lifestyle, which is in turn just a slight change to a few dozen little daily life habits. These little changes are ridiculously effective, and also ridiculously easy, which is why I find it ridiculous that almost everyone is broke in this country except those with such ridiculously high incomes that they can’t manage to spend it all.

But the enforcement over those little decisions needs to come from within each person, rather than from an outside authority or an angry budget. You can make yourself save, and Mr. Money Mustache can make you save because you’re reading this freely and then independently deciding whether or not to implement it. But your husband or wife can not make you save. At best, they can only inspire you to want to save.

On the other side of the coin, the Frugality Enforcers among us may need to sit back and do their own math. If you are already saving over 50% of take-home pay, for example, the odd indulgence will not derail your dreams of early retirement. And if your income is really high, you can indulge almost constantly – you just have to be a bit strategic and avoid the biggest money pits like luxury cars, long commutes, and yachts. My own frugality is hampered by my taste for luxurious housing and food, for example. But by approaching these luxury add-ons as part of a generally calculated and frugal lifestyle, the bank is not broken and the family’s spending still ends up around $2000 per month.

In fact, I find that allowing yourself to be imperfect enhances the experience of being human. Beer and wine are bad for me, but I still get drunk occasionally. I know that luxury is just another weakness, but I still indulge in it occasionally. The key to all this is to acknowledge that you are doing something unnecessary and slightly wimpy, laugh at yourself, and then do it anyway with full gusto. Then you’re free to get back to your normal disciplined self in regular life.

Strategy for Frugality Without Deprivation:

Start with your regular life. Start introducing challenges for yourself which build your Frugality Muscle. Embrace the successes and laugh at the inevitable failures. Note how quickly this becomes fun and makes life worth living. Now throw in the odd unnecessary luxury and laugh again at how large and decadent your life is. You could do this all day. What were all those other people whining about who said this would be hard?

*And have been since birth according to Mom. This is why I cut my own son some slack for his stubbornness, and attempt to use rational logic rather than fist-backed discipline to do my half of the family’s management.

**Which sounds a bit Unyielding and Old Testament, but the science on happiness seems to back this up: being honorable and consciously choosing to serve others leads to a happier life, because you’re constantly challenged and reassured that you are doing the right thing. Making selfish choices is like having that third piece of cake: thrilling initially, but quickly followed by a much longer period of unhappiness and repercussions.

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Aligning dreams and starting with a goal was exactly what I though the couple in the last post needed to do! It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you put your mind to something. Challenging yourself with how frugal you can be is actually a fun exercise.

We’re getting rid of law school loans by being crazy frugal. When you and your spouse are on the same page, you can make a pretty powerful team!

Exactly! My wife and I have been getting closer and closer aligned with frugality and efficiency. Because of this, she is now able to go part time and spend more time with the kids and we are going to be able to retire 2 years earlier than planned! All because we took the time to get on the same page.

This has definitely been our experience. At first when I started reading this blog, ERE and others like them I was actually driving my wife and I apart as I became a bit obsessed with it. Since I’ve been able to get her to see why I wanted to do it, it has become another challenge for us to take on together and has made our relationship better while also improving our finances.

Yeah, I can’t imagine how difficult it would be if you’re not on the same page. Fortunately, my wife has always been pretty frugal so it wasn’t a big deal for us. We also are doing pretty well financially so we don’t have to cut everything out. I cut my own and the kid’s hair, but she goes to a nice salon once in a while. She needs to look professional for work. Anyway, I think it’s best to marry someone with similar financial value, but not everyone can be that lucky.

Your advice reminds me a lot of the advice in Your Money or Your Life, which also reminds me of Mindfulness meditation. They talk about just being aware of what you are doing and how you feel about it, not necessarily trying to change anything. Once you are aware of things, you often magically auto correct.

Gee, I sure do spend a lot on this, is it proportional to how happy it makes me? Huh, I guess it doesn’t make me happy, somehow it’s less appealing than it was yesterday.

I was thinking about the connection between Your Money or Your Life and this post in particular as well. I think making the connection between life hours and expenses can be very helpful when approaching a hesitant spendypants. This could be particularly effective when it comes to recurring payments. For example, for someone who nets $25/hour, a $500 per month luxury car lease payment means he or she effectively loses 20 hours of your life every month for the privilege of driving in something that provides diminishing marginal utility. 20 lost hours every month over the course of years really adds up.

There’s a calculator (Time For Money) for the iPhone that shows you how much something costs in hours and also translates your monetary budget to hours. It can be very eye opening to look at your finances from a time standpoint.

A fascinating look at the underlying principles of the mustache. The part that sticks out to me is the simple step of determining the ‘why’. My wife and I have spent a lot of time thinking through this part of the equation. The interesting part is that our reasons are quite different. My wife’s primary why is to have more time, live a healthier lifestyle, and to be able to stay at home with the kids. My why is driven by the painfulness of the waste around me and simple inefficiencies that many people live with. The great part is that a simple lifestyle allows us to both achieve our goals at the same time. Oh, and being outside is great. All that talk about CO made us visit- that whole state is built for people that live outside.

another great article, thank you!
I especially appreciate that you are lately promoting to occasionally indulge, or allow some “waste” … made me think about my own habits. I am likely overdoing it here or there, driving my better half nuts (who is really also quite frugal herself) … and creating unneeded strain. So thank you.
Looking at the math, I am wondering about one thing though: 70k debt, paid back over ten years at 1.9k monthly …. leads to an interest rate of 25%!?! wondering if that can truly be the case, or the provider of this PPT made a math error … or did I??

The PPT didn’t say it would take 10 yrs to pay it off. It just looked ahead 10 yrs and said that at that time the debt would be zero. It might hit zero at the 8 yr mark, or 5 yr mark. Looking back at it again, I’m guessing it will hit zero by the 8 yr mark, since it points out what 8 yrs of debt repayment will total.

well, I guess it doesn matter …. at the end …. the strategy to use the liquid savings to repay debt, and focus on dept elimination asap … is sound.

bit I am still wondering about the math:
it says 70k debt
23.4k debt repayment p.a.
==> at this rate, I would have expected any reasonable dept to be paid off after around 3 years
but then it says “8 years of debt repayment = 187k” … really?
that would translate to a whopping interest rate of 30% p.a.!!!
if this was true, I would highly recommend this couple to not only pay off the debt asap, but refinance first! there should be plenty of options out there to do better than that, including zero interest credit card intro offers like Chase Slate or others

This phrase is so true, and actually doing this makes for a much more peaceful marriage! I tend to get on my soapbox about environmental issues (no need to nag about frugality as fortunately my husband is naturally fairly frugal) and was giving him a hard time over his choice of coffee brand: he insisted that I buy a non-Fair Trade/organic brand, and I was insisting that he had to drink what I thought was the ‘right’ brand. We had months of sniping and bad feelings over this (oh the pettiness!) until I realised that making him happy by doing what he asked was more important than my principles. I buy fairtrade loose leaf tea for ME though:-). Again, he loves his cable TV (ruinously expensive in Australia) but as he is the bread-winner and makes a good salary, I have to stop nagging him to get rid of it. I’ll just keep borrowing my books and DVDs from the library.

I get the point about choosing your battles and not causing strife over little things. But in this case I feel like principles win, since technically you have no responsibility to honour by buying a certain brand of coffee. (And since you’re the one doing the shopping I think you have the right to get what you prefer.) Still I feel like there must be a happy medium on that one… there are so many fair trade/organic/shade grown coffees out there these days, surely he could find one he likes!

And that slideshow was just genius! Big props to the guy who put that together. I’ll have to remember that little tip if I ever run into a scenario where a little convincing is necessary.

I actually have a post all drafted up that’s going live tomorrow. And it follows the same lines. I think it all comes down to the hedonic treadmill. Some people fail to realize that they do in fact have this baseline happiness level. The big SUV and fancy house may seem nice for a while, but eventually their happiness reverts back to where it was and they’re stuck holding the bag (the bag being massive debt and a brutal work schedule). Some people continue running faster and faster, but others (like yourself) realize that’s pointless.

Yep. The stubbornness gene is certainly correlated, to some degree, with the counter-consumption frugality mindset. I can attest to that attribute in my own dear, sweet husband :).

You hit the nail on the head (per usual) with the “Your Goals In Life” root cause. Our rationale and approach to early retirement is pretty simple. We don’t want to work for the next 30-40 years, be miserable and thus inflate our lifestyle to soothe the balm of our job-hatred, and exhaustedly retire at 65 to a homestead in the mountains to live a simpler life. Through frugality, we’re just going to cut out that whole middle part and bolt into it at age 33.

This: ” If you are already saving over 50% of take-home pay, for example, the odd indulgence will not derail your dreams of early retirement.” In my humble opinion MMM can and should emphasize this point more often. The constant face punching has its merits but showing the other side once in a while can be very motivating as well. People might not want to be constantly told to drop that latte or ride a bike to work or hundreds of other little things that make sense but may not be for everyone. Truth is, once you are at a 50% or higher savings rate if you want to buy that coffee once in a while you shouldn’t feel or be made to feel guilty, you are doing great as is. You are afraid to ride that bike to work? No problem drive your car and you will still retire early if you want to. Our savings rate hovers around 65% so if my wife wants to go out for an expensive dinner with her girlfriends I’m not going to bitch about it even if it falls outside of my definition of what’s reasonable.

I think this is exactly right and a good thing to note for the original couple in particular–maybe she came off poorly, but her husband is also making the family use an inflatable sofa, which seems crazy to me.

While I’m not afraid to ride a bike sharing a road with cars, there are many that do. Look up any article MMM posted about biking and you’ll see lots of replies from those that will not do it no matter how much nagging is dished out. Some are afraid because there is zero biking infrastructure – I can sympathize with that as that’s the case where I live. To go 4 miles from my house to an office park you have to be on a 4 lane road with a 3 foot shoulder where cars are flying by at over 50mph and then navigate a cloverleaf clusterf$#%^ entrance/exit ramps on a bridge over an interstate. Some might have a disability preventing them from riding. The point is, bitching about biking vs. driving and “fear” won’t get them on a bike. What I’m saying is that a better approach would be to focus the conversation on the savings rate and let these “indulgences” be. If someone is saving 50% or more and wants to drive a car or go out to eat, just stop your nagging – they are doing GREAT already!

I believe you need to take these suggestions and advice and apply them liberally to your own situation. Everyone’s story is different and one size doesn’t fit all. The point is, if you realize the end goal and can manage your path to getting there effectively, most certainly a savings rate > 50%, you don’t have to feel guilty if you’re not following the suggestions 100%. I view most MMM articles from a philosophical viewpoint and am totally on board. From a practical and implementation view, I choose to do some and choose not to do others. and of course… your mileage may very.

My story: I’m frugal, wife hasn’t totally bought into it yet. The arguing over money isn’t worth it. 3 kids approaching college age(14,17,18), because of our past savings rate, college is for the most part already paid for. Now I’m focusing on what to do in retirement (I’m 50). I like my job and get paid well for it. At a loss at what I want to do in retirement. But I know that until I know, continuing saving for the future opens up more and more options and that’s a good thing.

I”m going to suggest that having a single fear (or vice) does not a life lived in fear make.More importantly, it’s possible to “live the party line” and be successful without doing every.single.thing suggested by any specific person or blogger. For some people following that party line rigidly may be the kick in the pants they need. For others, fear of not being able to do it all may hold them back from doing it at all. I say that as a regular reader and rare commenter on MMM.

I am afraid of biking in traffic, as well as around the block. I also have a late life fear of flying (probably from living overseas for ten years and flying thirteen hours every time I wanted to visit family). I absolutely refused to touch (even with bags) the raccoon my three dogs jumped in the backyard. On the other hand, I’m not afraid of taking the subway in New York alone, no matter the end destination, I leave my car and house unlocked in a inner suburb until I go to bed, and I’d be happy to have a pit as my next dog, if I didn’t have three already. I’ve hitchiked and hosteled across Europe alone.

I have severe knee damage so badly from falling previously that if I fell again, I could end up in the scooter category. I however, am not the best example. Some people live where there are no bike paths, some live in weather completely different from what we have in Colorado. Personally I have lived in Washington DC (great bike paths in the suburbs but deathly in other areas as my late husband could have attested to), Germany (safe everywhere and legal everywhere and bikes allowed on trains and streetcars), Connecticut (yea, right!!!) and southern Texas with triple digit weather for three months.

My general feeling is that we’re all allowed our own fears, vices, hobbies and versions of needs and wants as long as we match our personal savings rates (or know the consequences) and are on the same page as our partners.

Just returned from visiting a friend on the East Coast. She and her husband live in a 1.2 million dollar home in the suburbs, are members at the local country club, own a Porsche, Mercedes, and $100,000 sports car he just bought during what she calls his “midlife” crisis. I asked him how fast his new car goes (figured my husband might want to know). He said he really didn’t know b/c he’s always stuck in traffic with it. Comical. But wait, it gets better. She knows how frugal I am. We often have a good laugh over it. During my visit she constantly pointed out how “cheap” her husband is and how proud I should be of him b/c “he’s just like me”. Pffft. Examples: he brings hotel shampoo home from his business trips, uses one paper plate five times before throwing it away, and turns the A/C down from his iPhone at work so she’s always hot and sweaty in their 4000 sq ft McMansion. I thought, “Honey, your husband knows NOTHING about frugality.” I believe my grandma used to call these kinds of behaviors, “penny wise and pound foolish”.

Worst part of it all was during the entire visit the guy never exhibited any genuine happiness. He was constantly preoccupied or agitated or I don’t know what. It was sad. His kids barely know him. His son would say, “Watch this dive, or watch this soccer kick.” I’d ask, “Did your dad teach you that? Does your dad play with you?” Kid would say, “Nah, so -and-so coach taught me.” I so badly wanted to play that song, ‘Cat’s in the Cradle’. Uggghhh.

So what do you do when BOTH spouses embrace the consumptive lifestyle? I wanted to counsel the whole family. Instead, I returned to my modest – almost paid off – home, retired (@ age 44) husband, kids reading free library books on the couch, and financial independence. Thanks for the affirmation MMM. You certainly bring sanity back into the lives of those who seek it!

I grew up with parents like that. I think it’s not all there fault. Once you’ve set up that life, with the friends and social circle, kids included, it’s really hard to scale back. American salaries and access to Stuff make it really easy to soothe our emotional deficits, continuously up until and after the mid life crisis car. Is there a problem? Throw money at it!

Have you had a discussion with your friend about her rudeness. I can’t tell if it’s judgmental, misunderstanding, or maybe jealousy? It’s easier to be unhappy with her spouse and then blanket anyone that doesn’t spend lavishly as the same, unhappy. Which is ironic because it’s the stuff making him unhappy. Regardless, it’s not very classy to speak like that about ones husband or friend. If she’s saying it to your face then it seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding because I couldn’t be friends with someone like that if it is ill-willed.

Thank you so much for this suggestion! We are big MMM followers and recently moved closer to our workplaces to reduce commutes but ended up in a bigger home that will suit our needs for a very long time. My four year old is obsessed with being in a “big house” and I would love to nip that in the bud. I just reserved this book from my library. Leo Leonni is a classic.

That has always been my issue with fast cars. Where can you really drive them fast without getting a ticket. I tell my wife to be thankful I don’t like boats or watches. Those can be saving killers. Maybe the 1.2M house could have been a $3M dollar house and they scaled back. :) We have a 2,400 sq ft house and I wonder when we will move to scale back a bit. We have no kids with a 4 bd room house. one bedroom is an office, one a guest room and one a guest room/office. Taxes will probably be $7,000 a year when we retire.

Posts like this and the positive responses to them normalize my frugal lifestyle when it feels like everyone around me is in consumer mode. This has refocussed me on my goal and reminded me that I should go outside and enjoy the summer–now. I’m going for a bike ride. Thank you.

Just turned down a job offer today that would have paid “more” – but currently I work almost entirely from home, and the new job would have entailed a 30-mile commute (15 mi. each way) 4 days a week. Do the math and it’s surprising how “more” becomes “less.” Also by losing at least two hours each day (including having to wear actual clothes, pack a lunch, and then actually do the commute) – I would end up losing a full 8 hours a week – equivalent to working an entire extra day every week! I celebrated my decision by working the entire day outside at my patio table, in my comfortable work-from-home clothes, admiring the flowers in my garden and enjoying a delightful breeze.

It’s so true that the more I flex my frugality muscles, the easier and more natural it becomes. That being said, I’ve also mentioned that I’m a big fan of monthly “mad money” for my husband and occasional eating out / other fun stuff. Just like everyone is saying, the crucial thing is to get the big goals to line up. As long as you’re in good shape there, it’s delightful to enjoy some small luxuries every now and again.

I had to weigh these options not long ago…. I used to live in the mid-west and I was living in a GREAT neighborhood 3 miles from work. Many days I would run and cycle to work easily and going by the grocery store on the way home.. I had no commuting costs to speak up. Except in the dead of winter then I would resort to driving… November thru most of March…

I recently took a job in California north of LA a bit. I’m making a little bit more annually with my new job.. but you factor in expenses and commuting and other things and at the end of the day I am making less… (I did know this going in as I had worked out the numbers…) I do attempt to cycle to work 3 days a week. I am challenged with this due to 105 degree heat in the summers… but I am keeping in mind I expect I will be able to do this year around even in winter… so somewhere in there that seems to offset the 5 months of year I had to hang up my bicycle in the Midwest.

However, the I couldn’t pass up this job opportunity. It is a career defining position with a company that is doing things that have never been done before and is laying the ground work for future commercial space travel.

A good thing that has come out of the higher expenses that I knew I would also encounter it is in another way forcing me to be even more Mustachian in other areas that I haven’t been before. Great Stuff!!!

I moved from a city where I was working from my apartment full-time, with a very frugal lifestyle, to Silicon Valley for a job promotion with my employer. I grew up here, so I was fully prepared for the high home prices and the massive commute – big change from no commute! I had to move further out of town to afford a home; my childhood neighborhood is in the range of $2M now. Yes, 2 million dollars for a 2500 sq ft house. I know. You definitely “can’t go home again” if you grew up in SV.

But my new higher salary and benefits far outweighed the downsides, as did the opportunities for upward mobility at my job, and the chance to see all my old friends more often.

My hubby and I are a SINK couple (with me working) for the moment, and life couldn’t be better. With all the years of working at home and saving like fiends, we have a good ‘stache growing on the side. I’m enjoying the new challenges of finding different ways to be mustachian, since riding my bike to work (30+ miles one way!) is out of the question. I still work from home 1-2 days a week, and carpool the rest of the time. I have a garden, and swap goodies with my neighbors who also have gardens and chickens.

I have no regrets about this move, as we now have a home of our own (in a place where 2 bd apartments are $3000 or more) and among other positives, we did the math and found that if I work a few more years I can still retire early and pay off the mortgage in time to enjoy the rest of my life.

Some may see “Silicon Valley” and immediately call our decision stupid, or face-punch-worthy, but it’s about the long view to us. I’d rather take this chance now, work my butt off with the best job opportunity offered to me, and get FI the way we want it, despite the higher cost of living. It’s a trade-off worth making for us.

I moved from a city where I was working from my apartment full-time, with a very frugal lifestyle, to Silicon Valley for a job promotion with my employer. I grew up here, so I was fully prepared for the high home prices and the massive commute – big change from no commute! I had to move further out of town to afford a home; my childhood neighborhood is in the range of $2M now. Yes, 2 million dollars for a 2500 sq ft house. I know. You definitely “can’t go home again” if you grew up in SV.

But my new higher salary and benefits far outweighed the downsides, as did the opportunities for upward mobility at my job, and the chance to see all my old friends more often.

My hubby and I are a SINK couple (with me working) for the moment, and life couldn’t be better. With all the years of working at home and saving like fiends, we have a good ‘stache growing on the side. I’m enjoying the new challenges of finding different ways to be mustachian, since riding my bike to work (30+ miles one way!) is out of the question. I still work from home 1-2 days a week, and carpool the rest of the time. I have a garden, and swap goodies with my neighbors who also have gardens and chickens.

I have no regrets about this move, as we now have a home of our own (in a place where 2 bd apartments are $3000 or more) and among other positives, we did the math and found that if I work a few more years I can still retire early and pay off the mortgage in time to enjoy the rest of my life.

Some may see “Silicon Valley” and immediately call our decision stupid, or face-punch-worthy, but it’s about the long view to us. I’d rather take this chance now, work my butt off with the best job opportunity offered to me, and get FI the way we want it, despite the higher cost of living. It’s a trade-off worth making for us.

OH How I miss the garden back in my previous home. I rarely bought produce as I grew most everything I wanted and froze it for use thoughout the year.

Not much grows here in the desert… but I might try next year.

One of the benefits of living in a place where Everything is more expensive… is that I do plan to leave here once things with work and life seems to be on the outs… The next place I move to will surely be cheaper and thus all the financial planning will go even further. So there is an upside to it from that sense I think.

We kind of went the other way – we plan to stay here after we reach FI.

Even though I have a crazy commute and the higher costs that come with being near SV, we chose this town and our little 900 sq ft house to be “retirement friendly” for when we’re not working anymore. Except for my drive to work, we don’t need a car at all to get everywhere here, even the hospital and all the recreation areas. Our home is small enough to maintain cheaply, it will be paid off sooner rather than later, the taxes should be manageable, there is no HOA, and we can grow our own food in the yard.

I’d be curious to hear what MMM and the other mustachians think about this plan, as it’s kind of backwards from MMM’s philosophy of living near work, downsizing later, and all that.

I just had a conversation with a coworker about this early last week, as he is thinking about buying a house an hour away. Of course, it’s the difference between affordable and not.

I have another friend/ former coworker who is interviewing for a job an hour away. She’s not happy about that, but she has been unemployed for a year and needs income.

It’s a topic I think about a lot. I live 10 miles from work. My husband and I work a block from each other. We drive separately – our schedules are different because of school/ childcare drop off and pick up schedules – it’s not possible to do both and work an 8 hour day (and currently our companies will not let us cut our hours).

I really wish we had purchased a house near where we work. At the time we bought the house, it was between our jobs, closer to his, and he biked. That company went out of business. In theory, I think that having your house and work be near each other is ideal, but in reality, people don’t necessarily stay at the some job for long periods of time. That makes it harder. If you are a homeowner, when do you cut and run? Selling/buying a house incurs quite a bit of expense, and of course you may be underwater.

If we lived closer to work, our house would be larger with a garage (simply because the houses are 2 decades newer), our commute could be done by bike or on foot, and we’d have much less driving overall. But at our prices, the real estate agent’s fee is $40,000, and it means pulling our son out of his current school and finding new child care. It just doesn’t seem worth it to me. At least not yet. Plus, I hate moving.

I’ll start out by stating that I love your website and the whole mindset that it encompasses. When I first read the previous post I realized that these two people were out of sync with each other, and that is not a good recipe for a happy marriage. They need to get their goals aligned before they can work out their reasons for her unhappiness.
My situation: I’ve been married for 41 years (!), and amazed my poor hubby put up with me for that long. We are both retired, with nice pensions and plenty of $$ stashed away. So we don’t need to be really frugal, but I still have pangs when we do have to take money out of the IRAs, even though the spending is perfectly justified. (house repairs, so we can fix the house to sell it and leave So Cal and go to CO, where my daughter lives w/ granddaughter and future grandbaby). I can’t wait to downsize and live in a smaller house, walk everywhere, revel in the CO outdoors, and cut my cost of living by about 25%. But the big issue is that my hubby and I are in perfect agreement. This complaining lady needs to figure out what is going on in her marriage, ’cause it ain’t good! I’ll spend money on something if I think I really believe it makes me happy, but only if the hubster agrees. That’s the point, both partners have to agree on the need for both spending and frugality. That is what makes for a happy marriage and a long successful life.

I agree. I liked that part. “being honorable and consciously choosing to serve others leads to a happier life, because you’re constantly challenged and reassured that you are doing the right thing. Making selfish choices is like having that third piece of cake: thrilling initially, but quickly followed by a much longer period of unhappiness and repercussions.”

Also the part about how you deal with your son because I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

When my husband and I first met, I wore ski clothes that I had owned for 16 years but lived on $40,000/year. He lived on less than $30,000 but had super nice high quality gear. A match made in heaven. He has learned to appreciate that old is sometimes better than new and I have cut down other spending.1

This is one of the better posts you have done in a while, MMM, and I generally like them all. I think you captured the philosophy and motivation so well and I also love the fact that you acknowledge and embrace our human foibles. Sometimes it can be off-putting and demotivating when starting this journey to compare yourself to the super mustachians on the forums who can always find a place to cut, a side of your face to punch, etc. Most of the times it is good, but like with a diet or starting an exercise regime, you have to build in failures and indulgences otherwise you won’t stick with it in the long run. Thanks for this column. I am sure it will go a long way for those half of couples who are trying to get their other half on board.

I do have to say though that it is helpful to have one spouse be a bit more Mustachian than the other. I am totally on board with this philosophy in spirit. I see the value, and I want to accomplish paying off debt and being able to retire early. But in practice, I find it really hard to buckle down. My husband has always been much more naturally in line with these practices, and so it helps a lot for me to be accountable to him. He’s not a dick about it, but he’s good at reminding me WHY I shouldn’t be wasting money at Old Navy or Target when I get the urge to shop for stuff I don’t need.

so you did not take off the full 2 weeks? It is ok by me (and possible others), you are allowed to take a vacation to relax from the constant blog writing. In fact, I am ok with closing the blog during the summer months (June-Aug) if you want, that gives you a break and us the readers a break from worrying that we missed a new article. After all, the sun is shining and there is plenty of outdoors fun stuff to do.

The only thing I ask is that a clear “re-open” date be established in writing, i.e. Sept 1st would work well. Something about the start of September always invokes a sense of responsibility or work should be done. If people want more action in the mean time, there is always the forums to check out. Cheers!!

Good points, MMM. 5 years ago my marriage ended. I was in my late 40s, had been a stay at home mom for a long time. We lived frugally, though, and separated frugally as well. I went to grad school on scholarship, while I worked part time and collected alimony and child support. Took a job with a start up just a couple of months out of school. When I left the marriage I had $400 dollars. My refrigerator that I had bought used died and I couldn’t replace it unless I charged it. I borrowed the money from a friend at no interest, bought the cheapest one I could find. Five years later, I am still not making great money but I have solid work experience and some great volunteer work as well. But the truth is within 5 years with an income the first two at around $25000 (sometimes lower) and now at $50000. I own my 4 year old car outright, no debt of any kind. Still have my 790 (probably higher now) credit score. I have purchased everything we need, including several luxuries such as an expensive camera, annual series of classical concerts, and a personal trainer. I am about to buy a modest house in a relatively inexpensive area where I figure I can live for the next 30 years or so. I don’t drink much or smoke anything, I eat cheap but healthy food, my high credit score has kept interest rates low when I have decided to finance (such as my car at 1.9% but now paid off). I did get a windfall inheritance but it wasn’t that large and it simply moved my financial goals about one year and a half. My favorite (and cheapest) local supermarket sent out coupons for $10 off $100 purchase — one coupon per week for 10 weeks. A very nice deal if I couple it with loss leaders or buy things that normally don’t go on sale at great prices. But I couldn’t use all of them, because spending $400 a month to feed the three of us (and one little cat) was too much money, even when I stocked up on things. Whole foods diet, cheap or free (and very enjoyable) entertainment (even the symphony only ends up being around $20 a ticket and the ushers will often move me from the cheap seats to the ones in front if there is space), very heavy library use, cheap redbox movie rentals if the library doesn’t have what we want, no cable, furnishing the entire house with yard sale purchases, cheap cell phones (love the Republic wireless plan), cheap town recreational sports for my kids and lots of fulfilling and cheap recreational interests (quilting and other sewing, knitting, cooking, lots of homemade music, gardening, photography, journaling walking and running, reading and reading aloud to and with my kids, etc.), living in a tiny rental house (under 500 square feet with no additional storage), hanging laundry, and lots of other frugal hacks learned over the years. Anyway, I can’t say we suffered, it was all a lot of fun and now we should be moving into a larger house (1300 square feet) within the next month. I estimate that mortgage can be paid off in 12 years at my current salary, but I don’t plan to stay at this salary at all. I figure with a little effort I can make at least 15K more a year with a lateral career move and also pick up some benefits that I don’t have now such as a 401K. I max out my Roth IRA every year and will continue to do that; my investments are well researched and appropriate balanced. I am still kind of shocked about how successful the frugality and smart planning has been for us. If I had known at 20 or 30 what I know now, I certainly would have been retired a long time ago. (Actually when still married we were living entirely on savings/investments/pension, none if it in large amounts). mmm is right. This stuff works.

I’ve only recently started my journey and trying to convince the other half to come along for the ride has been difficult. Instead of nagging about spending I’m trying to “be the change you want to see” by demonstrating to her that I’m perfectly happy without the spending and she can be too. I’ve also started mentioning about the future goals, especially as she wants a child and I’m sure would love to be able to stay at home with it each day.
Bringing a partner along can be a challenge at first, but i’m sure its well worth it in the end!

Everything that we do is because of motivation. And motivation can be either positive or negative (or the proverbial carrot and stick). When we do X because of positive motivation, then we want the reward that we get when X is done. When we do X because of negative motivation, then we’re afraid of the punishment that will befall us if we don’t do X. Note that both positive and negative motivations can be internal or external. I’m not just talking about the external motivation here.

And the thing is – if you want to motivate another person, then it’s much easier to come up with a negative motivation (threaten them, often unintentionally, indirectly or subtly) than it is to come up with positive one (tempt them).

But negative motivation has negative side effects. It will cause the person to resist, and even if it’s successful, the person will only do the minimum amount of work needed to avoid the punishment, since it would be pointless to do more. And in the longterm negative motivation causes either apathy (it doesn’t work anymore and you need stronger and stronger threats) or general unhappiness and fractured relationships. And more deviously – fear reduces rational thought. The extreme example – panic – makes this obvious, but even light fear will drastically reduce mental and creative capacity. This is why negative motivation works badly for tasks that require cognitive skills. Such as, say, figuring out how else we can save while being happier.

Positive motivation on the other hand has the exactly opposite side-effects. It makes person want to do as much as possible, to increase the reward as much as possible. It also gives a nice, happy feeling because you keep having pleasant thoughts about the reward. However it is also easier to abandon sometimes, because if you don’t do X, then you’re not any worse off. You don’t get the reward, sure, but you also don’t get punished.

So, to really get someone on the Mustachian bandwagon, you need to tempt them. Don’t ever threaten them with “don’t you see how BAD it is, when we spend”. That’s negative motivation with all the negative side effects. You need to get them salivating over all the sweet, sweet rewards that they can get from being frugal. But that’s much harder.

And, to add to the difficulty, not always a positive reward results in a positive motivation. For example, take a typical employee whose boss tells him than they will get a raise if they perform well on the next project. Sounds a lot like positive motivation, but it’s not. The employee will actually experience fear, not temptation. He won’t be tempted to “get the raise”, but rather he will be afraid to “lose it”. From his point of view, the reward is almost his, he just needs to avoid screwing up. And that’s negative motivation.

Another great article! Greetings from Hungary! Yes, there are MMM fans over here, too (at least one).
My transformation to a Moustachian happened about 5 years ago and I had to make a very hard decision: I divorced my wife partly because she did not share my view of future (she is a big spender and very materialistic). Luckily we did not have kids. This may sound brutal but believe me this was the best decision of my life. Since then I have married a fantastic girl who thinks the same way, we have two beautiful baby daughters. Finding the right partner is absolutely crucial. We have no debts whatsoever, we live in a beautiful not-too-big house nearby a lake and we are saving up as much as we can. We still have at least 7 years to financial independence but at least we have a common plan.

It’s been really gratifying to see my wife slowly but steadily coming on board. When she saw her 401k balance recently (after I suggested changes and increased contributions), she was pretty surprised. And more and more, she’s learning from her friends how little they have and how deeply in debt some of them are, and it’s given her a ton of satisfaction to not be in their shoes. She acknowledges my efforts for that, which is nice. She recently got a significant pay raise and said she intended to save/invest all of it. That’s my girl! Believe me, she wasn’t always this way — she was $25K in credit card debt at one point on a $60K salary. And spent, spent, spent. But as she’s seen what saving can do over the last 8 years of our marriage, she’s really turned it around. If she can do it, anybody can.

Just a note on the ‘why’. It doesn’t actually need to be common for your plan to move forward. For example, in our case my wife can’t give a crap about retiring early. Not interested as she loves her job and doesn’t get what everyone else is whining about. So were my dreams crushed? Nope, we found another angle that means much more to her: freedom from money worries. She grew up in a single parent household where money was always an issue. If the washer broke they couldn’t afford to fix it without help from family. So she loves our ‘early retirement’ plan after I explained for her it would be the ‘never worrry about money again’ plan. So our reasons on the why are totally different, but they can work together to get a similar result. Hopefully that helps a few people out there. Good luck.

Great advice. Should be read by everyone considering marriage. Going into it, you really have no idea how important it is to be on the same page. Ruin my marriage? MMM is like free therapy for mine. Many times, your posts are a launching point for important discussions and realigning of goals.

But my favorite part of the post is how you honor your kids’ questioning of authority. It’s one of the things I love most and hate most (when it’s me she questions) about my eldest daughter. Tough quality in a kid. Awesome quality in an adult. If she makes it there.

I talk to a lot of people at work and they all say they can’t retire because they don’t have enough money. It always surprises me because our company pays fairly well, and most of them are part of a dual income couple. So where is the money going??? Some of our visitors have commented our parking lot is full of really nice cars. They are right. My boss just recently told me he plans on buying an Audi, but he always complains how he will never retire. And during bonus and salary negotiation time, he says are you glad you received a raise? A measly 1-2% raise at that. It’s so odd! And it has put into super saving mentality. I don’t want to be stuck in corporate forever.

Do you work in my office? I constantly hear co-workers say they don’t know when they can retire while they drive leased cars and buy $400 handbags. In one recent discussion my boss scoffed at the idea that I could retire if I had $1 million. I keep quiet about my plans for early retirement as well as my lifestyle at work. Most people just don’t understand.

Yet another great post MMM. For me, being frugal has been relatively easy all my life. I grew up in a relatively wealthy middle-class family and always had a sense of guilt when my mother would spend money on me. My wife, on the other hand, grew up with a family that didn’t have much money. So when the two of us started to become wealthy, I actually found pleasure in acting poor (opposite of my childhood) while she found pleasure in indulging (opposite of hers). Not that she spend tons of money, but more than I would have liked.

Being naggy certainly didn’t help. I found much more success helping her see the big picture. “Should we buy this new $3,000 couch?” “We could, but I really like our couch and would rather spend time going for walks than sitting inside”. I find that framing the naggyness with the big picture in mind really helped.

What if spouse does not want 450K in 10 years? Some spouses do not get the difference between having money and not having it. “So we have money but drive shitty cars and live in a subpar house?” “umm, I’ll take the very nice house, nice cars and lattes over a number on a piece of paper.”

Depends on the meaning of “have the money”. If it means “we have cash to buy the house and car free and clear”, then go for it. If it means “we can qualify the loan and earn enough to cover the payments”, then spouse is completely missing the point of MMM. It’s about freeing oneself from the bondage that “covering the payments” brings with it. The “numbers on the piece of paper” are measures of how far away that freedom is. Voluntarily enslaving oneself is sometimes necessary, but should always be done with a worthy goal in mind.

I have some work to do. My wife enjoyed Pt. 1, but I think she was on the side of the complainer lady. I asked her to read Pt 2 and she declined. Sigh. I have some creative work to do to get us to a more “Mustachian” existence.

MMM… I have never felt more Mustachian than I do now after reading this post… I have always connected with your ideas about saving and living beneath your means, but never considered us even close to Mustachian due to our spending levels and some other “bad” habits. However as a high income and net worth family we definitely spend a lot more on the luxuries we find important and since we can afford them we rarely think twice about it.

My spouse and I are not always on the exact same page, but getting closer. We each get a monthly allowance that we are free to spend on anything, it can be a latte or saved up for a new car, if that’s what we really want. We are a one car family, and have been for a number of years, I work 26Km away from home so it is currently a neccessity, although I am trying to get work to move me closer to home, which would be ideal. DH works within walking distance and we live close to downtown so we are also close to the library and grocery stores, we really don’t spend much time in other stores. Because of our allowance we don’t feel like we are deprived, we have the option to get treats and I think this saves alot of friction in a marriage. Like all things in a marriage money should be discussed and sometimes compromises are necessary, but such is life.

And to the original poster in part 1, I am the female and I am the one who is more frugual, so no, MMM is not a hard sell to the females.

I know some religions have a 10 commandments, but these are the 20 which I strive to live. This goes along with what you are saying in terms of responses to authority (#1 – #4) below.
1) We all have a genetic makeup which helps us determine who we are (personality, health, etc.)
2) Our personality and temperament are derived from your upbringing, and all social interactions.
3) Our personality, responses, memories, perceptions are all the sum of our experiences.
4) With extreme effort, where you come from does not have to define you going forward if you have a goal in mind (and drive to achieve it).
5) Life is a journey and a series of choices.
6) Life is like walking down a corridor of doors (being different possibilities). Many times the doors are left opened, but through action or inaction, doors can close. If you enter one door, you enter a new corridor of doors, with different possibilities awaiting you.
7) When choosing a mate/partner, you want someone who has similar to you in the following ways (or have understandings in place prior to making the relationship official) as it will stave off 95% of all fights:
* Child rearing (methodology, how many, how to raise them, etc.)
* Religion
* Money (how much, how to life, lifestyle, etc.)
* Ability to communicate (Can you have rational conversations? Can you talk about the weather? This is all you will have when you get older)
* Attraction (and sex drive)
8) Every time a person gets angry at you, the reason is they feel they have a right to something, and you are impeding their right to what ever it is. I have never found a case for this to be wrong (be it armed robbery, too much spending, etc.)
9) Have a goal in life. IE. Have a 1, 5, 10, 25, 50 year plan
10) When choosing a career, college degree, etc. pick something you can stand which will help you get your goals.
11) Spend less than you earn.
12) Pay off all your bills every month.
13) Only take on debt if it aligns with your long term goals.
14) Do onto others as you would have them do unto you. (This is family as well as strangers)
15) Do things for others you don’t want to do, as it will come back to you 10 fold.
16) There will always be someone richer, smarter, faster, better than you at almost everything. What do you don’t see is how miserable or what the sacrificed to get to where they are at.
17) No matter what you do, try your hardest, and it will work out.
18) Practice makes perfect. You need to spend 10,000 hours to become an expert at something.
19) Everything in life is balance of trade offs. If you spend 5 hours video gaming, you are not spending 5 hours w/ the family or 5 hours learning a new skill
20) Always strive to learn new things, or understand things more deeply. There are many levels to everything, and understanding what makes up a problem, solution, etc. makes you a more well rounded individual.

MMM, I think when you say “But if you’re already locked in with a wife and kids…” it’s better to change “wife” to “spouse”. With “wife” it feels like your audience is only men which we all know is not true.

This was a great post. At some point I realized I had to stop nagging my spouse.( I’m still working on it) amazingly it was the hypermiling challenge that open the doors and now today we were talking about getting into peer lending. It has been a journey.

I like what other have said about figuring out your saving rate goal and then relaxing. My problem is that if I can up it I want to, cutting out any extra work time but we are hovering around 60% so really I can and should chillax.

Also that PowerPoint was amazing! Thanks so much Andy and thanks MMM for sharing. You ate right MMM your temperament has so much to do with behavior. It amazing I still find it so curious your family dynamic with food, you always alude to the fact that you prepare separate meals for little mm. (that seems like such an American practice, I know your Canadian). I’ve always been of the you eat what everyone else eats and I feel like in most parts of the world that is the practice. But I usually draw the line at food that I myself can’t stomach. However I also read a parenting blog and the author pretty much agrees with your perspective ( offer your kid healthy options and trust your child to eat what he needs) so I’ve been loosening the reins I certainly don’t want my son to have a traumatizing experience with any one food and then close the door on it forever. You should check it out MMM I think you’d like it. Google Janet Lansbury .

We have an uneasy peace in our family regards frugality. We have managed a great deal on a middle-of-the-road income. I was able to stay home with the kids for twelve years while working odd jobs (editing, beekeeping, writing) on the side. I can now work part time and still be home for my kids when they get home from school. We have paid off our house and have zero consumer debt.

However, I would classify myself as a minimalist and certain habits of my wife’s drive me crazy. Chief among these is the grocery list. I shop by deciding how much money I have in my grocery budget and then plan accordingly. My wife writes whatever she wants on “the list” and tells the kids that they should write down what they want on the list. It’s a fundamental difference in ways of life. If I run out of milk, and I only have twenty dollars left in the food budget, I either don’t buy more milk or make soy milk. Now that I’m married – and while I sound like I’m complaining, I’m happily married for 18 years – if I don’t come home with milk, or anything else on the list, it’s a major issue. I simply cannot get my wife excited about living on a budget. I think it boils down to a difference in family background. When we visit my in-laws, I hear my mother-in-law constantly saying “put it on the list.”

We have the same issue with stuff, to a lesser degree. Granted, I would use the same stuff until it was literally unusable, whether I had the money to replace it or not. My wife does like to shop, but she does do it at thrift stores. We now have three couches. My wife wanted a leather couch. We found one at the thrift store that looked horrible. We offered $75 for it, and they accepted. I picked it up on my bicycle using our bikes at work trailer. It cleaned up to look almost like new. I am constantly trying to dump possessions, and my wife is constantly trying to fill the house back up. I’d like a relatively empty, Zen-like house. My wife likes full and plush.

My wife is grateful for my frugality, and she likes the fact that I manage the money. (She was bouncing checks regularly when we first got married), but I can’t get her excited about approaching savings as something we can do together. I have to squirrel money away behind the scenes while buying everything on “the list”.

That’s a pretty interesting story, Paul. I’m like you in the furnishings department (I like airy indoor spaces and hate tripping over things), but like your wife at the grocery store (never had a budget and enjoy bountiful food). But with the help of Costco and cost-per-calorie calculations, we still come out OK.

Maybe some sort of nesting mentality going on there? I used to be like that until i read an anti-consumerist book that suggested a 3 month no spending challenge or something like that?. Can’t say I made it all the way through the challenge but gee it opened my eyes and made me more aware of my spending.

Excellent post! Very well said. I am, by nature the kind to live & let live; controlling anybody is just not in me. My husband, although not wasteful, also is not very frugal. If he decides he wants something the price doesn’t even factor into it. He has what I call American Entitlement Disorder (AED), the rationale of this disorder: I work hard, I should have/deserve it. I could pitch a fit and forbid such purchases, but what good would come of it?
As posted– these purchases are not enough to derail us. We are debt free and I (he has a few too) have enough daily frugal habits well established to see us through.
Thanks for the reminder and the “You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar approach”.

I never heard of American Entitlement Disorder but my husband freely admits that he has G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome). He has a high end camera and some how “needs” new lens and other photography related gadgets when they are first released. He is aware that reading photography forums creates a sense of urgency and desire and he rarely succumbs but he still longs for the stuff. We have no debt and both retired early so he can buy whatever he wants so I never encourage or discourage him. Still….an interesting term for it and we both use it to defuse our spendy desires. My syndrome would involve craft supplies…..

I am finally getting this stuff – and I hit my fifties last year. I’m glad that it’s never too late to make a start, but I do regret the fact that careers, job loss, and money stress were very much present as we raised our children. What an immeasurable bonus to have financial freedom – or at least a very solid financial foundation – before raising children. It’s something that I used to think only the aristocrats among us could do.

Yes, MMM please see if you can encourage the “starting over” crowd. Failed or stalled careers, jobloss, medical bills, divorce, moves that didn’t work out and bad credit suck up a lifetime of money and motivation.
We all want to keep getting back up for another round – but I meet many middle-agers that have no hope of retirement and are just getting by or are needing help from family and governnment. I don’t want to be one of those people – and have tried but failed to pick jobs or investments that didn’t steal my future -again and again. I don’t need you to roll your eyes – it can happen and does all too often-you just don’t know or see it. I’m checking out your system to make a run for it again and its my last ditch effort. Yard sale is my middle name. The kids are gone and 2nd hubby and I are all go for the gold -but we live in a depressed area where pay and opportunity is low and taxes are high. Just letting you know that we are not all spring chickens anymore but still appreciate any encouragement and advice. I know people determined to die with as much debt as possible – but my stress levels are too high with debt and I need to get them both under control. Becoming a subscriber and pushing the reset. Thanks in advance.

MMM had a suggestion in one of his articles a while ago that really connected for my wife and me: Make a list of everything that you could do with your free time. Sort it by cost. Do the free/cheap ones (or better yet, do the ones that make you money).

Once you have a list full of free museum visits, hikes in the park, etc., it became hard to justify mindless consumer experiences (“shopping,” movies, casual dining). The remarkable thing too is that often times the free experiences as fun or more fun than expensive ones. I enjoy going to the free outdoor movie watches where you pack your own picnic far more than $10 movie tickets and movie theatre junkfood.

I found the Whole Foods slide interesting as well but for a completely different reason. I started shopping Whole Foods rather than the Safeway because, for me, it is close enough to walk to vs. driving to the Safeway. Ditching the whole car thing. ..

Knowing I have to haul everything home… I started buying only what I needed for that weeks recipes from the bulk bins. I didn’t change what I chose to eat, I just bought 2 cups flour vs. 5lb bag sort of thing. And after all is said and done a few months later – I ‘m eating organically, seriously cut down on food waste, walking more and saving about 30% off my previous grocery bill. It surprised the hell outta me.

I really don’t think whole foods should be classified as a grocery store. It gets away with it, but it’s really a specialty market. But yeah, when I do go there, it’s so good. I find I don’t like Going there often because the novelty of fresh baked food wears off.

Just yesterday I was working on my house that I am in the process of flipping. It was a perfect Wednesday afternoon with cooler than normal weather for July. I began thinking about how much fun it would be if just one of my friends could be here with me, instead they are locked away at their job, working 40+ hours a week, spending their life doing something they don’t want to do. If they could just figure out how to live a good frugal life like I have, we could be out enjoying a relaxed afternoon, laughing, working, and making money at the same time. Then today I read this MMM article and it says, “These little changes are ridiculously effective, and also ridiculously easy, which is why I find it ridiculous that almost everyone is broke in this country except those with such ridiculously high incomes that they can’t manage to spend it all.”

Wow, that’s exactly what I was thinking! If my friends could change their life a little bit just as I have, we could all be enjoying our free time and living life. Please keep on giving out this good advice and spreading the word Money Mustache… maybe someday we can all have friends that can enjoy life with us!

It’s amazing to me how many people never ask “why?” They just grow up, work all the time, and consume. My wife is totally on board with my desire to get to “enough” so that we can break free from financial slavery.

I couldn’t agree more. My husband has always been frugal and he knew that pushing me to share his perspective would not work because I’m stubborn as hell and do NOT appreciate being told what to do. Instead, he patiently let me “discover” the benefits of frugality on my own.

Now that I’m a convert, well, let’s just say he’s one happy worry-free fellow. I might be even more frugal than he is :).

I believe Mustachianism gave me the goal. I didn’t have debt, I had an emergency fund, savings, paid up house, car, and when a lot of well-paid extra work started coming in, I didn’t feel motivated to keep working more than my 8 hours. Mustachianism gave me a reason I had never thought of: financial independence, in the real sense of the expression. Before, I thought financial independence was the ability to get a job. How silly! But maybe I was not the only one. So this mustachianism allowed me to see the whole picture, the whole meaning of money. I feel empowered, clear, motivated. Thank you.

YES! We had virtually no debt (mortgage!), money in our accounts, paid off car, enough money, seemingly, to do all the necessary work to our house. What else to do with the money? It kept getting spent in ridiculous little purchases. £2 there, £20 here.

I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and it jarred against me. I didn’t want to work and work to buy a fancy car or a humongous house. That just seemed like a lot of cleaning and maintenance to pay for! He said to put rich above secure and comfortable. I would much rather be secure.

Fortunately my partner and me are working towards the goal together. He doesn’t know it’s called Financial Independence yet, he just knows that the more he has the longer we can survive if he loses his job. (I am on a sick leave form my job at the moment, so we are relying on him, as much as I hate it.

And fortunately for us, I have recently received an inheritance roughly equal to our (small) mortgage, so we managed to clear it, just 18 months after getting it (He’s 30, I’m 24, he supported me through University, and we accidentally saved a house deposit – people in the real world HATE me when I say that, but it was true!), so now our housing costs are just maintenance and council tax (equivalent of property tax). Our savings rate has now hit 40% for long term stuff (We are waiting for some more data points before calculating how much we’re saving in cash – inheritance messed up the figures!). Pretty good for a SINK couple in the UK when he’s only just below the median wage

I was the first one to find MMM, but once my husband came on board, it was awesome–no more ME being the naysayer for things he wanted! There’s an outside authority now! I think it was just too abstract for him to see that small sacrifices (a) weren’t really sacrifices at all and (b) would be worth it later. Neither of us is perfect, but we hold each other accountable–I try to do that without being the “boss.”

Great article and one that resonates with me – especially the bit about response to authority!

Money management is a very tricky business when you have a one-earner family, with one member a dyed-in-the-wool Mustachian, and the other a spender. Since the earner is Mustachian, and the spender is not…(and spender has her own unique set of baggage surrounding the money=love problem) it can be a sticky wicket at times. However, I must say, the JOY that I witness when my dude is saving money is very real and tangible. And slowly, I am learning to change my habits to help us as a family to cultivate that kind of joy and contentment.
I have an incredible talent for finding ways to spend money. Thankfully my spouse has an innate ability to see the long game, to put money away, and then show me the benefits! Since he is the earner, it’s sometimes easy for me to feel like he has “authority” over the spending. But he reminds me that we are a team, and my contribution, while not measured in dollar bills, is just as great.
I have to remind myself at times that frugality is not a personality flaw – but rather something that makes him such a great guy to be married to. He’s got the long game plan for us – and it doesn’t include credit card bills or long hours of work.
And, just for the record, Mustachianism has not ruined our marriage! Having a community, a name, a WAY to identify the life-goals and strivings, has been an amazing gift to us. I may still be a “wannabe”, and definitely have a long way to go, but damn! I think I have some peach fuzz.

Interesting discussion going on here. I guess it’s a matter of this couple learning the difference between frugal and downright stingy. However, it appears they have other issues besides internal spending policies, primarily a lack of will to discuss mutual goals and how to achieve them as a team. So many useful suggestions in the above articles and replies that I won’t belabour the point.
But heck! if it was me, I’d go at that stupid blow-up sofa with a steak knife, buy a good, used second-hand one and make some big comfy cushions to match. (With an old sewing machine and decorator fabric found in the discount bin).

I’m with you, completely. Really? A blow-up sofa? I think this is an example of two people who are frugal in different ways, each trying to impose his/her “right way” on the other.

Our current sofa was a freebie from the neighbors; all that was wrong with it was that it didn’t suit them any more. It is way comfy, and better yet is about 30 years into “off-gassing,” so that my husband feels satisfied we’re not being poisoned by chemicals (this is something I don’t buy into so much; on the other hand he was insistent on glass baby bottles, about one year before the BPH issues in plastic bottles because widely publicized, so maybe he knows stuff I don’t).

And maybe this is the point: when you live with someone, you have to spend a fair amount of time considering that they know stuff that you don’t and vice versa, and if you think your way is best, you need to figure out how to share that in a way that still honors their thinking.

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